Thursday, April 8, 2010

It's OK to Kill US Citizen Without Due Process

In the War on Terror--or whatever it may be called today--President Obama has asserted the privilege of being able to order the targeted killing of an American citizen. According to the Washington Post, Anwar al-Aulaqi has been added to the CIA's kill list, after having been on Joint Special Operations Command's (JSOC) kill list for some months. The Muslim cleric is linked to an attempt to blow up an airliner on Christmas Day and the Fort Hood killings.

Now, Aulaqi may well be the scum of the earth (or not, as there are always 2 or more sides to every story), but to claim the right to whack one particular U.S. citizen opens up that mighty slippery slope of "where does it end?" Having ventured one step down that road, what'd be wrong with taking another step with another bad guy? You're not on the side of the terrorists, are you?

The operative words are due process. It's one of the things that supposedly makes us the good guys.

Does it strike you as odd that we're targeting US citizens with no judicial process? Does it strike you as odd that we've got two entirely separate sets of lists on which Americans can be targeted to be killed? Does it strike you as odd that we've now got an apparent turf battle over who gets to kill al-Awlaki?